What Does Marvel Have Against Magic Being Magic?

[Drops Of Venus]

Did you actually read your links?

They didn't ban time travel. They banned a few specific shows that involve time travel but are really about how present day China is evil and have time travel as a means to escape from it.

Yes, I read the links, but I didn't think that was clear. Also, like I pointed out, the thought of it only applying to certain chinese productions doesn't explain why Back To The Future was banned.

[Doom Answers to No Master]

So you would prefer a guy like Reed Richards when confronted with Magic simply say, "oh, it is magic ... ok." How are the scientific guys supposed to respond?

The perfect example of magic vs. science can be found in the "Unthinkable" storyline in Fantastic 4...Richards doesn't believe in Magic but Doom has imprisoned him in Doom's library in Latveria to force Reed to admit there are forces he doesn't understand which causes Reed to question if Doom can acknowledge forces greater than him of which he owes his new found power...

[Carabas]

The perfect example of magic vs. science can be found in the "Unthinkable" storyline in Fantastic 4...Richards doesn't believe in Magic but Doom has imprisoned him in Doom's library in Latveria to force Reed to admit there are forces he doesn't understand which causes Reed to question if Doom can acknowledge forces greater than him of which he owes his new found power...

Only if you don't understand what science actually is.

There is no conflict between science and magic. They're not opposites.

All this story shows is that Reed has a flawed understanding of his reality and is too pigheaded to readjust his viewpoint. Or in other words, Reed is a very bad scientist.
The basic point of science is "I do not understand how this works" and then find a way harness whatever it is so you can use it. Understanding is preferable but not required.
Newton didn't understand a thing, he only thought he did. But his math still holds up for most purposes so we still use his laws even though they have been disproven.

[gurkle]

Some comics treat magic the way serious fantasy literature does, as something with its own rules and rituals and consequences. Vertigo used to have some of those.

And then there's goofy silly magic, the sort of thing that has no consistent rules and is really closer to a sitcom like Bewitched. Zatanna is DC's most famous representative of that kind of magic. The only rule these mages truly follow is that they can do anything that is necessary for the plot, but if it's necessary that their magic shouldn't work, it doesn't work.

Anyway, Marvel leans heavily toward the silly end of the spectrum. Doctor Strange is based on magicians from radio and comic strips, and most of his spells just consist of "make up a rhyme that conveniently fits what the plot requires." There have been occasional attempts to do more serious, Vertigo-style fantasy, but very little of it has stuck.

Defining this kind of magic as "science we don't understand" may be too simple, but it's usually not intended as a serious definition of magic because it's not supposed to be a serious portrayal of magic. Just like MU science has almost nothing to do with real science, but just consists of pseudo-scientific explanations for devices that do whatever the plot requires (and break down whenever the plot requires that).

[phonogram12]

And then there's goofy silly magic, the sort of thing that has no consistent rules and is really closer to a sitcom like Bewitched. Zatanna is DC's most famous representative of that kind of magic. The only rule these mages truly follow is that they can do anything that is necessary for the plot, but if it's necessary that their magic shouldn't work, it doesn't work.

Anyway, Marvel leans heavily toward the silly end of the spectrum. Doctor Strange is based on magicians from radio and comic strips, and most of his spells just consist of "make up a rhyme that conveniently fits what the plot requires."

I love Zatanna and everything, but yeah, this drives me crazy, which is probably why I'm not a huge fantasy fan.

[Old Owl]

Wrong post

[Old Owl]

They are still the descendants of Elder Gods I think, Gaea still play a role as Jord in Norse Pantheon and Mother Earth in all other Pantheon.
And Gaea is definitely Earth Born. So no matter what, they are tied to Earth instead of just being aliens.
Atum/Amon-Ra is Earth-Born and he spawned the Egyptian Pantheon.
Most Earth Pantheon are still Earth-Born beings who moved to another pocket Dimension later.

Your close. The second generation of gods originated from the minds of all the various humans and came alive after due to all mystical/god like energy in the atmosphere from after Atum/Demiurge absorb all the original demons of earth.

[MaximoffTrash]

That's a good question. What Franklin does is quite the same as Chaos Magic and I always thought it was a little bit too much to be just explained as a mutant power.



Well, I don't know how some movies might have gotten a pass, but the time travel ban IS a real thing, or at least that's what every possible media article was reporting back then:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/ri...ns-time-travel
http://travel.cnn.com/shanghai/life/...travel-274122/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ne...l-films-177801
http://techland.time.com/2011/04/13/...n-time-travel/

I thought that maybe it only counted for chinese productions, but then I read Back To The Future was banned there for that same reason, so I really don't know what's their reasoning there.

Back to Future was not released.
You can find it in a lot of Chinese streaming services.
Also it might be banned during the time it was released, but not now.
Another example is that Terminator movies(since 2 I think) were released in China. And it's all about changing the history and stuff.

And about those so-called Time-Travel stuff, most are Mary Sue stories about girl travelling into the past and hooking up with Royals. It's years ago when this kind of TV shows just flooding the channels.(And China is sensitive to "history parody", but won't straight out ban you, they will restrict this stuff it floods the market, it doesn't apply to foreign movies since there are only so many movies released per year.)

And not released in China is not the same as banned, small budget movies that considered not profitable tend not to get released in theaters.(China only allow a certain number of foreign movies to be released to protect Chinese movies, foreign movies got delayed in holidays all the time. The ones that get passed tend to be middle-to-high budget, more profitable movies. Sometimes those articles could just think it's for the wrong reason.)

And China's rules on movies are actually flexible and complicated, can't really be summarized in "Magic is not allowed" "Time Travel is banned."
Sometimes movies are just rejected for not considered profitable to cinemas. Or they stepped on other landmines(mostly political landmines).